Poverty, Inequality and the Millennium Development Goals in Latin America and the Caribbean
Nora Lustig Tulane University Prepared for the Colombian Government for the Sixth Summit of the Americas September 2011
1
Poverty, Inequality and the Millennium Development Goals in Latin America and
the Caribbean
Nora Lustig 1
Summary
Poverty and inequality have dropped sharply in most of Latin America and the Caribbean
in the past decade. Citizens of the region today have far better access to education, health
care and basic infrastructure, and nutrition and health indicators have improved
markedly. The region is on track to fulfill most targets of the Millennium Development
Goals.
Progress, however, is not uniform across the region. Some countries are clearly lagging,
and the targets will probably not be met. Extreme poverty is still very high in many
places and Latin America remains the most unequal region in the world. Latin American
children, by and large, are poorly educated and many never reach secondary school. Little
progress has been made in curbing maternal mortality, which is far too high for the
region’s level of development. While public spending is increasingly directed to the poor,
income remains concentrated. Taxes and transfers do little to distribute income.
This study is not an exhaustive analysis of the social development agenda. Instead, it
focuses on a few key items that require special attention. Five main recommendations
emerge:
1. Implement policies to serve those excluded from existing social protection
systems, including especially poor people who are currently excluded from
benefits, young people at risk, and those impoverished by adverse shocks.
2. Increase opportunity for all groups, regardless of socioeconomic status, ethnic
background, age or gender, particularly by ensuring access to quality education
through secondary school.
3. Reduce maternal mortality and other preventable deaths.
4. Make taxes and transfers more redistributive. Above all, use public spending to
reduce extreme poverty as much as possible, tax the income and wealth of rich
individuals, and eliminate expenditures that worsen income distribution.
5. Improve bases of information to assess effectiveness of public policies in
reducing poverty and inequality.
1 Nora Lustig is professor in the Department of Economics, the Roger Thayer Stone Center for Latin
American Studies and the Center for Inter-American Policy and Research at Tulane University, where she
is the Samuel Z. Stone Professor of Latin American Economics. Dr. Lustig is also a non-resident fellow at
the Center for Global Development and at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, DC. To contact the
author: [email protected]. The author thanks Kimberly Covington for her excellent assistance in the
preparation of this document and to Cynthia Selde for her excellent translation into English. This document
was prepared for the Summit of the Americas, Cartagena, Colombia, April 2012.
2
Two types of initiatives which would benefit from regional cooperation:
1. Improve information and monitoring of social development progress and public
policies. Redirect the MECOVI program (Improvement of Living Conditions
Surveys in Latin America and the Caribbean) towards its original role to ensure
that all countries in the region have high quality nation-wide income-expenditure
surveys and share this information with poverty and inequality analyst and
researchers in international organizations and academic centers.
2. Strengthen networks to share information.
The previous summit established the Inter-American Social Protection Network
(IASPN). The network still must identify: i. best practices in technical operation;
ii. ways to achieve political consensus on redistributive initiatives, and iii. new
tools to address special challenges (such as rising food prices or the exclusion of
youth from school and jobs). The scope of the IASPN’s action, then, must link the
technical areas of relevant decision makers to academic entities that evaluate
public policies and the political economy dynamics that shape them.
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Introduction
Evidence shows that poverty and inequality have dropped sharply in most of Latin
America and the Caribbean in the past decade.2
(Figure 1) Citizens of the region today
have far better access to education, health care and basic infrastructure, and nutrition and
health indicators have improved markedly.3
Progress, however, is not uniform across the region. Some countries are clearly lagging,
and the targets will probably not be met. Extreme poverty is still very high in many
places and Latin America remains the most unequal region in the world. Latin American
children, by and large, are poorly educated and many never reach secondary school. Little
progress has been made in curbing maternal mortality, which is far too high for the
region’s level of development. While public spending is increasingly directed to the poor,
income remains concentrated. Taxes and transfers do little to distribute income.
This paper will not attempt to make an exhaustive analysis of all pending items on the
social development agenda, but rather to highlight progress and specific challenges.4
Section I discusses progress toward the Millennium Development Goals to reduce
poverty and inequality and promote education and health. Section II focuses on the most
glaring deficiencies of the social development agenda, while Section III recommends
action to address these deficiencies.
I. Progress
Poverty and inequality indicators show progress in meeting the first Millennium
Development Goal (MDG1), which calls for reducing the proportion of the population in
extreme poverty by half between 1990 and 2015. Three indicators, the proportion of the
population living in extreme poverty, the poverty gap ratio, and the share of the lowest
quintile in national consumption, measure this progress.5 Table 1 shows the three
indicators, by country, for MDG1 up until 2008,6 which show that the region as a whole
is advancing at the right pace. The countries that have attained a degree of progress
greater than 72 percent, since 1990, are considered to be on track.7 That is, if these
countries are able to sustain this rate of progress, they will fulfill the first goal by 2015.
2 See, for example, ECLAC (2010a), ECLAC (2010b), Gasparini et al. (2009) and López-Calva and Lustig
(2010). 3 See, for example, UNDP (2010), ECLAC (2010b).
4 It should be a noted that although we have tried to include the Caribbean in this analysis, there is,
unfortunately, very little information available from comparative international studies. 5 Most countries in Latin America do not carry out surveys that measure consumption on a regular basis.
Therefore, the ratio that is presented in Table 1 relates primarily to income and not consumption. 6 Note that ECLAC (2010b) used extreme poverty levels appropriate to each country, rather than the
international threshold of U.S. $ 1.25 per day, measured at purchasing power parity, which is typically used
in international comparisons. The reason for using national poverty levels is that for much of the region the
international threshold for extreme poverty is too low when compared with the standards set by the
countries themselves. 7 The reader is reminded that MDG1 requires that the proportion of the population living in extreme
poverty be reduced by half between 1990 and 2015.
4
Education has also improved. Almost all Latin American countries met the MDG2 goal
of universal access to primary education during the nineties. By 2008, most young
people in Latin American countries between 15 and 19 years of age were completing
primary school, with only the poorest Central American countries as exceptions (Figure
2). In a number of countries, more women completed primary school than men in this age
group, demonstrating strides in gender equality. The ratio, however, remains higher for
men in countries with strong indigenous populations. Infant and under-five mortality,
indicators of the health-related MDG 4, have fallen across the region. (Table 2) In fact,
Latin America and the Caribbean have the lowest infant mortality rate among developing
regions, and the fastest reduction in this rate since 1990. However, great disparities
between countries, both in Latin America and the Caribbean, remain.
Declining income concentration is the region’s most noteworthy improvement. (Figure 1)
Regardless of the indicator observed, inequality fell in 13 of the 17 Latin American
countries with information available between 2000 and 2010.8 The poorest 20 percent of
households constituted a rising share of national consumption between 1990 and 2008,
demonstrating reduced inequality. (Table 1) This is the first decline that Latin America,
the most unequal region in the world, has experienced after decades of rising or steady
inequality. It is even more impressive compared to the many developed and developing
countries that currently exhibit a growing income concentration.
The reduction in income concentration is due in part to a decline in the dependency ratio,
especially among poor households, and the resulting demographic transition. However, a
narrowing in the wage gap between high- and low-skilled workers as well as more
progressive government transfers are the two most important factors.9 Expansion of
schooling raised the population’s level of education, contributing to the reduction in the
wage gap between workers of different skill levels. In most countries, the number of
people with no schooling, or only incomplete or complete primary education has
decreased while the proportion with secondary and tertiary education has increased. In
other words, public spending has become more "pro-poor," by increasing cash transfers
and to transfers in kind, in particular, education and health services.
Some of the many signs of progress throughout the entire region in the past decade, such
as the reduction in the concentration of income, are quite surprising. But social
development challenges remain, and the next section highlights those requiring special
attention.
II. Challenges
Although inequality and poverty have declined considerably over the last decade, there
are many areas where progress still needs to be made. If they maintain the same rate of
progress, several individual countries and the region as a whole could fulfill the first
8 Due to insufficient information (a topic discussed in more detail below), it was not possible to carry out a
similar analysis for the Caribbean region. 9 See Lopez-Calva and Lustig (2010) and ECLAC (2010a).
5
MDG by 2015. In fact, some have already met this goal. However, as Table 1 shows, 11
of the 17 Latin American countries with available data have not sufficiently lowered
national poverty levels. In fact, Latin America and the Caribbean have an excess of
poverty: most countries have a higher proportion of people living in extreme poverty than
corresponds to their level of per capita income. (Figure 3) Even if these countries cut
extreme poverty by half by 2015, they may still have higher levels of poverty than other
countries with the same level of development (measured by per capita income or
consumption). In order to stay on pace with global development, Latin America and the
Caribbean should actually reduce poverty more drastically than MDG1 requires.
Extreme poverty has decreased to date thanks to large-scale government transfer
programs. These programs transfer money to poor households in exchange for meeting
certain requirements, such as ensuring that children receive periodic health check-ups and
maintain school attendance. The largest and best known programs are Bolsa Familia in
Brazil and Oportunidades in Mexico, which serve about 11 and 5 million poor
households, respectively, at a modest cost equivalent to less than 0.5 percent of each
country's GDP. This type of program emphasizes reducing poverty and improving
standards of education, nutrition and education for children and women in poor
households (especially in rural areas), with the aim of breaking the intergenerational
transmission of poverty and providing more equal opportunities.10
Studies indicate that conditional cash transfer programs not only reduce poverty, but also
improve school attendance, nutrition and health of children in beneficiary families (in the
case of health, other members, especially women, also benefit). In addition to these,
other targeted transfer programs have been instituted for elderly adults living in poverty,
and in some cases governments have expanded coverage of the pension system to new
sectors. This also contributed to reduced poverty among the elderly.
However, a high proportion of people living in poverty do not receive government
transfers of any kind. Even in countries where large-scale programs have been
implemented, between 30 and 50 percent of the population in extreme poverty do not
receive transfers. Preliminary results of the "Commitment to Equity" initiative indicate
that this is not so much a result of exclusion by the existing programs but of gaps in the
system of social protection as a whole.11
Beyond the exclusion of members of the target
population (children and elderly in extreme poverty, especially in rural areas), no
programs exist at all for: i. people affected by certain types of events (e.g., increased food
prices and unemployment), and ii. those with certain types of profiles (for example,
single men and women who are young and of working age). The few programs that serve
these groups do so on a very small scale.
10
Many studies report that the principal problem of the region is that inequality of opportunity is an
extremely crucial factor in the intergenerational transmission of poverty. See, for example, UNDP (2010)
and World Bank (2008). 11
"Commitment to Equity" or CEQ is a joint initiative of the Inter-American Dialogue and the University
of Tulane. At present this study is being carried out in nine Latin American countries: Argentina, Bolivia,
Brazil, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. For a description of the
methodology, see Lustig (2011).
6
While the reduction of inequality has been significant and widespread so far, the outlook
for the future may be less encouraging. In particular, many fear that the decline in the
wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers will not continue to fall and may even
increase again. In order to consolidate a continued reduction of income inequality,
educational expansion must continue, and in many cases, accelerate. In this regard, the
region faces major challenges. On the one hand, completion of primary education is still
not universal. In 5 of the 7 poorest countries, the pace of progress is not sufficient to
achieve universal primary education by 2015. Even worse, in most countries, access to
basic secondary education (lower secondary) and upper secondary (high school) is still
low, especially for the poorest sectors of the population. (Figure 4) Idle youth between
15 and 19 years of age, who are neither studying nor working (called "Nini"), pose a
serious problem. This group represents an estimated 9.4 million people in the region at
high risk of early pregnancy, drug abuse and crime. Idle youth make up 18.5 percent of
15- to 18-year-olds, and 22.4 percent of 15- to 24-year-olds.12
Moreover, although conditional cash transfers have contributed to the reduction of
inequality (it is estimated that in Brazil and Mexico they account for between 10 and 20
per cent of the decline in inequality), fiscal and tax systems (taxes and direct and indirect
transfers) redistribute relatively little. (Table 3) This is partly due to tax systems’ heavy
reliance on indirect taxes rather than direct taxes on individual income for revenue
collection. Also, even though spending has become more pro-poor, many policies and
programs remain regressive (they make income distribution more unequal) or not
progressive enough (the proportion of benefits reaching the non-poor population is
greater than their participation in the total population).
Inequalities in health also remain. The infant mortality rate is significantly higher for the
poor and for ethnic minorities. (Figure 5) But maternal mortality lacks the most progress.
The fifth MDG (MDG5) states that maternal mortality should be reduced by three
quarters between 1990 and 2015. The reality is disappointing. On the one hand, the
unavailability of data makes it impossible to analyze the evolution of this indicator since
1990 in many countries. In countries where data are available, the maternal mortality rate
has stagnated or even increased in most cases. (Table 4) Although the causes of maternal
mortality vary by country, hypertensive diseases in pregnancy, hemorrhage during
delivery or postpartum, and in some countries abortion, are the most common. Nine
countries still have skilled personnel attending fewer than 90 percent of births, even
though the majority of countries meet this standard. In addition, the quality of care
provided is often low. A significant percentage of deaths occur in the postpartum period
(42 days after birth), showing that a skilled level of medical care during delivery is not
necessarily enough to prevent maternal deaths. As with education indicators, maternal
mortality is higher in poorer regions and households.
Table 1 also clearly reflects a different problem: the lack of information or doubts about
its quality. The table does not contain a single statistic for the 25 Caribbean countries
officially classified as part of the Caribbean region, nor for Cuba or Haiti, and the
12
See, for example, Cárdenas, de Hoyos and Székeley (2011)
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information available for the Dominican Republic is insufficient. Evidence also suggests
that data on income or consumption for the wealthier sectors of the population is strongly
underestimated. In many cases it is not clear whether survey data reflects income before
or after taxes and direct transfers. A number of countries do not collect information about
consumption, which makes it difficult to analyze the impact of indirect taxes such as
value added tax or VAT, and a subset of the surveys do not include explicit questions
about government transfers.
III. Future actions
From the above diagnosis, the following recommendations emerge as priorities for public
action:
1. Implement policies to serve those excluded from existing social protection
systems, including especially poor people who are currently excluded from
benefits, young people at risk, and those impoverished by adverse shocks.
Many households in extreme poverty do not benefit from cash transfers programs
or other public support provided by current social protection systems. This is, in
general, by design. In countries with low per capita income, the major constraint
is the availability of public resources. But in middle-income, and especially in
upper middle-income countries, resources should not be a constraint; if they are,
the government should endeavor to collect additional resources. In most cases,
however, social protection schemes do not have sufficient resources to eradicate
extreme poverty because most resources are allocated to the non-poor; existing
programs are not designed to cover the entire population in extreme poverty; and /
or the amount transferred is too low. Expanding existing transfer programs could
solve some of the above-mentioned problems and could be achieved fairly easily
since the mechanisms for conditional cash transfers are well established, and the
best practices already exist for expanding them.
However, transfer programs are not adequate to address the "new poor", including
young people 15 to 25 years old, especially singles and idle youth, as well as
those impoverished by adverse shocks, such as rising food prices. Most of
existing programs were designed to identify and aid the “structural” poor and lack
the ability to incorporate people who suddenly experience extreme poverty.
Similarly, they are not designed to stop providing services when an adverse
pressure ends and assistance is no longer needed. In addition, since cash transfer
schemes allocate resources mainly to women (mothers, in general) and to elderly
individuals, they are difficult to adapt for young people who make independent
decisions. No technology yet exists to support people affected by the escalation
of food prices or young people at risk. These are areas that require systematic
research and experimenting with different interventions to discover what works
best.
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2. Increase opportunity for all groups, regardless of socioeconomic status, ethnic
background, age or gender, particularly by ensuring access to quality education
through secondary school.
Several countries in the region have not achieved universal provision of primary
education. Interventions should be made on the supply side (ensuring the
availability of schools and teachers in underserved areas) and the demand side
(with conditional cash transfer programs, for example) to address this problem.
Still, the low quality of education and resulting poor learning performance, and
lack of universal coverage at the secondary level remain the complex challenges
to overcome. To tackle quality, it would be useful to identify best practices
worldwide.13
At the same time, countries must build more schools, provide more
teachers and design mechanisms to support demand. On the demand side, the
opportunity cost of lost participation in the labor market to continue attending
secondary school (especially at the upper secondary level), is too high for cash
grants to cover. The solution will require public-private partnerships with the for-
profit and not-for-profit sectors.
3. Reduce maternal mortality and other preventable deaths.
The region has high levels of maternal mortality which have shown very little or
no improvement. This indicator is also poorly measured. On the one hand,
countries should establish more accurate monitoring and measuring
mechanisms.14
In countries where the chief cause of maternal mortality is a lack
of skilled care for childbirth, the emphasis should be on expanding the range and
scope of such personnel. However, emphasizing skilled care can cause medical
personnel to underestimate of the risks of childbirth and the postpartum period,
even within health centers (i.e., when the so-called "triage" process assigns
women about to give birth a lower priority than other cases to be treated).
Therefore, mechanisms that modify the behavior of the health care personnel and
encourage community participation and monitoring can be very important. Also,
since part of maternal mortality is associated with abortion (illegal in many
countries of the region), systematic reproductive health campaigns, especially for
young people, are essential.
4. Make taxes and transfers more redistributive. Above all, use public spending to
reduce extreme poverty as much as possible, tax the income and wealth of rich
individuals, and eliminate expenditures that worsen income distribution.
Waiting for the market to solve poverty can take far too long, especially
considering that we are talking about households facing basic nutritional
13
PREAL (Program for Promoting Educational Reform in Latin America and the Caribbean), a Latin
American initiative sponsored by the Inter-American Dialogue and by CINDE (International Center for
Education and Human Development), can be a source for learning about best practices at the regional level. 14
It should be determined if the maternal mortality observatory installed in Mexico in 2010 is a best
practice.
9
deficiencies. Therefore, the countries of the region, especially middle- and upper
middle- income countries, should aim to completely eradicate extreme poverty
(rather than seeking to fulfill the MDG, which only calls for its reduction by half).
The only way eradicate extreme poverty quickly is to rely on government
transfers. Conditional cash transfer schemes have the advantage of
simultaneously expanding investment in the human capital (education, nutrition
and health) of children from households in extreme poverty. This would better
position these groups to achieve productive jobs and better pay upon entering the
labor force. Transfers in this case are not just "social assistance." They help
reduce the intergenerational transmission of poverty and improve efficiency and
productivity on a much larger scale. Middle- and especially upper middle-income
countries have access to sufficient fiscal resources (depending on the case,
through increased taxation and/or the reallocation of spending) to achieve the
eradication of extreme poverty. All that is missing is political will. It is well
known that individual income, especially among the richest groups (who are also
among the richest people in the world, not only in the region), is inadequately
taxed across the region, due either to legal design or to tax evasion. In order to
create more fiscal wherewithal and a more redistributive and equitable tax system,
tax rates for these groups should be raised along with mechanisms that truly
ensure compliance.
5. Improve bases of information to assess effectiveness of public policies in
reducing poverty and inequality.
To improve data quality, household surveys should be representative at least in
urban and rural areas and for different ethnic groups. They should also clearly
include income levels before and after taxes and direct transfers; measure the
contribution of government transfers; and satisfactorily measure the income of the
richest sectors of the population. In order to identify both the available fiscal
resources, and the specific gaps in existing social protection systems, it would be
desirable to have a comprehensive diagnosis of the scope of fiscal policy. For
example, the diagnostic tool developed by the "Commitment to Equity" or CEQ
initiative of the Inter-American Dialogue and the University of Tulane, could help
to accurately develop policies and actions and find the resources for advancing
recommendations 1, 2 and 4.
At the level of the Americas, there are two types of initiatives where regional cooperation
could yield tangible benefits:
1. Improve information and monitoring of social development progress and public
policies. Redirect the MECOVI program (Improvement of Living Conditions
Surveys in Latin America and the Caribbean) towards its original role to ensure
that all countries in the region have high quality, nation-wide, income-expenditure
surveys and share this information with poverty and inequality analyst and
researchers in international and academic organizations. When it started,
MECOVI was a joint initiative of the Inter-American Development Bank, the
10
World Bank, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and
the Caribbean (ECLA), and governments of the region (especially their offices of
statistics). This initiative was very successful and it became one of the projects
for which inter-agency and inter-governmental collaboration yielded clear and
tangible results. Based on this experience, it should be relatively simple to redirect
the project toward its original objectives. The collaboration of the SEDLAC
(Socio-Economic Database of Latin America and the Caribbean) initiative, which
is a joint initiative of the World Bank and the Universidad Nacional de La Plata,
would also help to ensure the standardization of criteria and the comparability of
information sources.
2. Strengthen networks to share information.
The previous summit established the Inter-American Social Protection Network
(IASPN). The network still must identify: i. best practices in technical operation;
ii. ways to achieve political consensus on redistributive initiatives, and iii. new
tools to address special challenges (such as rising food prices or the exclusion of
youth from school and jobs). The scope of the IASPN’s action, then, must link the
technical areas of relevant decision makers to academic entities that evaluate
public policies and the political economy dynamics that shape them. In this sense,
existing networks such as LACEA (the Latin American and Caribbean Economic
Association), the Inter-American Development Bank’s network of research
centers, the World Bank’s network of conditional cash transfer systems, the
United Nations Development Programmes’ Human Development Report offices,
and the Commitment to Equity initiative of the Inter-American Dialogue and
Tulane University, to name a few, could facilitate this process. Moreover, the
academies of science, including those of industrialized countries such as the
United States and Canada, could transfer important technical know-how in the
fields of measurement, monitoring and the best practices of specific interventions.
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Table 1
LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN: PROGRESS TOWARDS THE
MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS[a]
Goal 1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Target 1.A Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion
of people whose income is less than one dollar a day
Country or territory
Indicator 1.1
Proportion of population
below $1 (PPP) per
day[b]
Indicator 1.2
Poverty gap
ratio
Indicator 1.3
Share of
poorest
quintile in
national
consumption
Level
1990
Level
2008
Progress
2008
Level
1990
Level
2008
Level
1990
Level
2008 Latin America and the
Caribbean[c] 22.5 12.9 85.3 8.6 4.4 3.2 3.5 Latin America[c] 22.5 12.9 85.3 8.6 4.4 3.2 3.5 Countries with low and
medium-low levels of HD[d] 48.4 35.7 52.7 21.0 13.0 2.6 3.1 Haiti
Nicaragua 51.4 33.8 68.5 24.3 12.3 2.1 3.5 Guatemala 41.8 29.3 59.8 18.5 11.3 2.7 2.8 Bolivia 39.5 32.4 35.9 9.7 4.5 3.2 4.3 Honduras 60.9 47.1 45.3 31.5 23.9 2.3 1.9 Countries with medium
levels of HD[d] 29.6 21.1 57.8 7.7 6.8 4.1 3.9 El Salvador 27.7 18.2 68.6 9.1 8.1 3.4 3.4 Paraguay 35.0 30.8 24.0 3.6 5.7 5.2 5.0 Dominican Republic
22.6
8.8 8.8 3.2 2.9
Ecuadorc
26.2 14.2 91.6 9.2 4.7 4.8 4.4 Countries with medium-high
levels of HD[d] 21.0 13.2 74.0 8.8 4.1 2.9 3.9 Peru 25.0 12.6 99.2 10.1 4.0 3.0 4.0 Colombia 26.1 22.9 24.5 13.8 8.3 2.0 2.9 Brazil 23.4 7.3 137.6 9.7 3.3 2.1 2.6 Panama 16.2 13.5 33.3 5.2 1.6 3.1 4.6 Venezuela (Boliv. Repub. of) 14.4 9.9 62.5 5.0 3.5 4.3 5.2 Countries with medium-high
levels of HD[d] 10.7 5.9 88.8 3.5 2.0 4.1 4.2 Costa Rica 10.1 5.5 91.1 4.8 2.2 4.3 4.4 México 18.7 11.2 80.2 5.9 3.2 3.9 4.0 Cuba
Uruguay[e] 3.4 3.5 -5.9 0.9 0.9 4.8 4.9 Argentina[e] 8.2 5.8 58.5 1.6 2.6 4.2 3.7 Chile 13.0 3.7 143.1 4.4 1.1 3.5 4.1
12
Table 1 (continuation) Caribbean countries[c]
Anguila Antigua y Barbuda Netherland Antilles Aruba Bahamas Barbados Belize[f] 13.4
Dominica Granada Guadalupe French Guinea Guyana[f] 5.8 7.7
Cayman Islands Turks and Caicos Islands British Virgin Islands United States Virgin Islands Jamaica[f] 2.0 2.0
Martinique Montserrat Puerto Rico Saint Kitts y Nevis San Vicente and the
Grenadines Saint Lucía[f] 20.9
Suriname[f] 15.5 Trinidad and Tobago[f] 4.2
[a] The indicators are presented in numerical order; those for which there is no information have not been
included. Unless otherwise stated, the figures correspond to percentages.
[b] The Dominican Republic does not have information on the rate of progress because data for 1990 are
not available.
[c] Weighted averages.
[d] Simple averages.
[e] The figures for indicators 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 refer to urban areas.
[f]
Corresponds to the proportion of the population with income below one purchasing power parity
(PPP) dollar per day. Data available on the official United Nations site for Millenium Development Goals
Indicators: see [on line] http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Default.aspx.
Note: HD stands for Human Development.
Source: ECLAC (2010b), Statistical Annex Table 2.
13
Table 2
WORLD REGIONS: INFANT MORTALITY RATE (INDICATOR
4.2 OF THE MILLENIUM DEVELOPMETN GOALS), 1990-2009[a]
(Per 1,000 live births)
Geographic region 1990 2009 Percent change between
1990 y 2009 World 63.2 46 -27.2 Africa 103.9 80.8 -22.2 Asia 61.4 39.9 -35.1 Europa 14.2 6.8 -52.1 Latina America and the
Caribbean 42.7 20.6 -51.7 North America 8.2 5.7 -31.1 Oceania 31.1 21.9 -29.5
Source: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), on the basis of United
Nations, World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision [online] http://esa.un.org/unpp/.
[a] Linear interpolation of estimates of the probability of dying before reaching one year of age, prepared
by the source for 1985-1990 and 1990-1995 (data from 1990) and 2000-2005 and 2005-2010 (data from
2009)
Source: ECLAC (2010b), Table VI.1.
14
Table 3
LATIN AMERICA AND EUROPE (SELECTED COUNTRIES): INCOME
INEQUALITY BEFORE AND AFTER TAXES AND TRANSFERS, 2008
(Percentage variation of Gini coefficient)
Latin America
Argentina -2.0
Brazil -3.6
Chile -4.2
Colombia -7.0
Mexico -3.8
Peru -2.0
Latin America and the Caribbean (6 countries) -3.8
Europe
Austria -34.2
Belgium -36.2
Denmark -40.8
Finland -34.7
France -24.4
Germany -34.9
Greece -25.0
Ireland -35.8
Italy -22.9
Luxembourg -41.5
The Netherlands -33.3
Portugal -24.0
Spain -25.5
Sweden -35.6
United Kingdom -34.6
Europe (15 countries) -32.6
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), on the basis of E. Goñi, J.H.
López and L. Servén, “Fiscal redistribution and income inequality in Latin America”, Policy Research
Working Paper, No. 4487, Washington, D.C., World Bank, January 2008.
Source: ECLAC (2010a), Table VII.3.
15
Table 4
LATIN AMERICA (SELECTED COUNTRIES): TRENDS IN MATERNAL
MORTALITY RATIOS
(INDICATOR 5.1 OF THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS), 2001-2008
(Per 100,000 live births)
Country 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Downward
Trend Paraguay 164 159.7 182.1 174.1 153.5 128.5 121.4 127.3 -- Colombia 104.9 98.6 84.4 77.8 78.7 78.7 72.9 70 75.6 Mexico 72.6 70.8 59.9 62.6 60.9 61.8 58.6 55.6 57.2 Nicaragua -- 87 95.6 82.8 87.3 86.5 90.4 76.5 -- Venezuela
(Bolivarian
Republic of) -- 60.1 67.2 68 57.8 -- 59.9 -- 56.8 Little variation Brazil 73.3 70.9 75.9 73 76.1 74.7 77.2
Cuba 40.4 33.9 41.1 39.5 38.5 51.4 49.4 31.1 46.5 Costa Rica 35.8 31.4 38 32.9 30.5 36.3 39.3 19.1
Chile 18.7
16.7 13.4 17.3 19.8 18.1 18.2 Upward Trend
Dominican
Republic -- 69 82 63 75.3 91.7 80 72.8 86.3 Argentina 35 43.5 46.1 43.6 40.1 39.2 47.8 43.7 --
Source: Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Basic Indicator Database, Februrary, 2010
Source: ECLAC (2010b), Table VI.4.
16
Figure 1
Latin America: Reduction of poverty and inequality during the last decade
(a) Inequality (Gini), unemployment, indigence and poverty
b) Gini Index: change between 2008 and 2002, by country
Source: ECLAC (2010a) Figure VI.2; Figure VI.1.
Note: In (a) the Gini coefficient is multiplied by 100 and the rates of extreme poverty and poverty represent
the proportion of individuals living below the respective poverty lines established for each country by
ECLAC and expressed in percentages. The reader is reminded that the Gini coefficient is an indicator that
ranges from 0 to 1 (or to 100, if expressed as a percentage), with a value of 0 expressing perfect equality
and a value of 1 (or 100) maximum inequality.
Country names abbreviations and translation: América Latina = Latin America; AR = Argentina; BO =
Bolivia; BR = Brazil; CO = Colombia; CL = Chile; CR = Costa Rica; EC = Ecuador; GT = Guatemala; HN
= Honduras; MX = Mexico; NI = Nicaragua; PA = Panama; PY = Paraguay; SV = El Salvador; UY =
Uruguay; VE = Venezuela.
44.0
19.4
52.1
11.1
55.0
33.0
12.9
55.1
7.4
52.0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60
Poverty
Indigence
Employment
Unemployment
Gini (x100)
2008 2002
17
Figure 2
Access to education in Latin America: circa 2008
(a) 15 to 19 year olds who completed primary education
(b) Gender parity index for 15 to 19 year olds who completed primary education
Source: ECLAC (2010b), Figure IV.3.
93.1 89.6
62.5 70.8
76.1 79.2
88.3 93.0 93.5 93.6 93.9 94.1 94.6 94.6 94.7 95.0 95.7 96.7 97.8 98.7
0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 70.0 80.0 90.0 100.0
Latin America (2008)Simple average
Guatemala (2006)Nicaragua (2005)
El Salvador (2004)Honduras (2007)
Dominican Republic (2008)Bolivia (Plur. State of) (2007)
Venezuela (Bol. Repub. of) (2008)Colombia (2008)
Peru (2008)Costa Rica (2008)
Panama (2008)Ecuador (2008)
Brazil (2008)Paraguay (2008)
Mexico (2008)Uruguay (2008)
Argentina (2006)Chile (2006)
0
-0.14
0.15
0.05 0.06
0.09
-0.01
0.04 0.03
-0.01
0.01 0.00 0.00
0.03 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.02
-0.20
-0.15
-0.10
-0.05
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
Gu
ate
mal
a (2
00
6)
Nic
arag
ua
(20
05)
El S
alva
do
r (2
00
4)
Ho
nd
ura
s (2
00
7)
Do
min
ican
Rep
ub
lic (
200
8)
Bo
livia
(P
lur.
Sta
te o
f) (
20
07)
Ven
ezu
ela
(Bo
l. R
epu
b. o
f) (
20
08)
Co
lom
bia
(2
008
)
Pe
ru (
20
08)
Co
sta
Ric
a (2
008
)
Pan
ama
(200
8)
Ecu
ado
r (2
00
8)
Bra
zil (
200
8)
Par
agu
ay (
20
08
)
Mex
ico
(2
008
)
Uru
guay
(2
008
)
Arg
enti
na
(20
06)
Ch
ile (
200
6)
Lati
n A
mer
ica
(20
08
)
Sim
ple
ave
rage
0 =
gen
der
par
ity
18
Figure 3
(a) Gini Coefficient and per capita consumption
(b) Incidence of poverty and per capita consumption
Source: Inter-American Development Bank (2011), Figures A1 and A2.
Note: The vertical axis of panel (a) shows the Gini coefficient and of panel (b) shows the
proportion of people with income less than US$2.50/day, expressed in purchasing power
parity of 2005. The horizontal axes of both graphs show per capita consumption based on
household surveys. In both cases the information is for around 2005. The concept of
"excessive" levels refers to the fact that, both in terms of poverty and inequality, virtually
all countries in the region are above the predicted level based on their per capita
consumption (they are above the line -- or curve, in the case of poverty – obtained by
regressing inequality and poverty on per capita consumption for a large sample of
developing countries).
Monthly per capita consumption since the 2005 PPP survey
Monthly per capita consumption since the 2005 PPP survey
Gin
i C
oef
fici
ent,
20
05
19
Figure 4 Panel (a)
Panel (b)
[a] Regional totals may differ from those shown in other figures in the same source because in this case the
widest available geographic coverage was used. The right-hand axis here represents the ratio of female to
male graduates: values exceeding 1 indicate a higher percentage of female than male graduates [b] The figures related to indigenous and non-indigenous youth refer to eight countries
Source: ECLAC (2010a), Figure IV.14 and ECLAC (2010b), Figure IV.10.
72
44
60
72
82 91
51
22
34
47
62
80
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1.0
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Tota
l
Qu
inti
le I
Qu
inti
le II
Qu
inti
le II
I
Qu
inti
le IV
Qu
inti
le V
Tota
l
Qu
inti
le I
Qu
inti
le II
Qu
inti
le II
I
Qu
inti
le IV
Qu
inti
le V
Lower secondary school completion Upper secondary school completion
LATIN AMERICA (18 COUNTRIES): LOWER AND UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL COMPLETION AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE AGED 20 TO 24, BY HOUSEHOLD INCOME
QUINTILE AND SEX, AROUND 2006[a]
(Percentages and ratios)
Completion rate Gender parity index
Gen
der
par
tiy
ind
ex
Pe
rce
nta
ges
49
22 30
45
57
78
22 26
55
24
40
53
68
83
20
31
0102030405060708090
100
Tota
l
Qu
inti
le 1
Qu
inti
le 2
Qu
inti
le 3
Qu
inti
le 4
Qu
inti
le 5
Ind
igen
ou
s
No
n-i
nd
ige
no
us
Income Quintile Rural areas
LATIN AMERICA (18 COUNTRIES) [b]: ADULTS AGED 20-24 WHO COMPLETED SECONDARY EDUCATION, BY PER CAPITA INCOME AND SEX, AROUND 2008
(Percentages)
Women Men
20
Figure 5
Source: ECLAC (2010b), Figure VI.8.
12 12.3 15.1
19 16.2
23.6
29.5
37.4 40.8
46
56
37 40.1
47.1 50.7
58.9
43.1
52.3
75.9
51.3 53.2
55.1 57.8
63.9 67.1
69.1
80.6
45
53.4
62.6
69.3
85.3
92.5
47.7
39.4
66.3
50.4
37.2
41.6
Map
uch
e
Ata
cam
eño
Aym
ara
Qu
ech
ua
Bri
bri
Cab
écar
Mis
qu
ito
Gar
ifu
na
Ch
ort
í
Len
ca
Tolu
pán
Emb
era
Wo
un
aan
Ku
na
Bu
gle
Ngo
be
Co
sta
Am
azo
nia
Sier
ra
May
a
Xin
ka
Ch
iqu
itan
o
Mo
jeñ
o
Oth
er in
dig
eno
us
Gu
aran
í
Aym
ara
Qu
ech
ua
Enh
let
No
rte
Pai
-tav
iter
a
Wes
tern
Gu
aran
í
Ava
-Gu
aran
í
Niv
acle
Mb
ya
Qu
ech
ua
Aym
ara
Ash
ánin
ka
Oth
er n
ativ
e la
ngu
age
Mis
kito
Sum
o
LATIN AMERICA (10 COUNTRIES): INFANT MORTALITY RATE, BY COUNTRY AND INDIGENOUS GROUP, LANGUAGE, LANGUAGE FAMILY AND TERRITORY, 2000 CENSUS
ROUND (Per 1,000 live births)
Non-idigenous population
Chile
Costa Rica
Honduras
Panama
Ecuador
Guatemala
Bolivia (Plur. State of)
Paraguay
Peru
Nicaragua
21
References
Cárdenas, Mauricio, Rafael de Hoyos and Miguel Székely. 2011. "Idle Youth in Latin
America: A Persistent Problem in a Decade of Prosperity,” Brookings and the
Tecnológico de Monterrey. August.
Inter-American Development Bank. 2011. Strategy on Social Policy for Equity and
Productivity.
ECLAC. 2010a. Time for Equality: Closing Gaps, Opening Trails, United Nations, May,
Santiago, Chile.
ECLAC.2010b. Achieving the Millennium Development Goals with Equality in Latin
America and the Caribbean: Progress and Challenges, United Nations, August,
Santiago, Chile.
Gasparini, Leonardo, Guillermo Cruces, Leopoldo Tornarolli and Mariana Marchioni.
2009. "A Turning Point? Recent Developments on Inequality in Latin America and the
Caribbean." Working Paper no. 81 (February). CEDLAS.
http://www.depeco.econo.unlp.edu.ar/cedlas/pdfs/doc_cedlas81.pdf
Lopez-Calva, Luis F. and Nora Lustig (ed.). 2010. Declining Inequality in Latin America:
a Decade of Progress? Brookings Institution Press and UNDP.
Lustig, Nora. 2011. "Commitment to Equity (CEQ): A Diagnostic Tool and Ranking of
Latin American Governments' Fiscal Policies. Background Document,” Inter-American
Dialogue and Tulane University, working paper.
UNDP. 2010. "Acting on the Future: Breaking the Intergenerational Transmission of
Inequality." Regional Human Development Report for Latin America and the Caribbean,
United Nations Development Program, Regional Bureau of Latin America and the
Caribbean.
World Bank. 2008. Regional Study. Measuring Inequality of Opportunity in Latin
America and the Caribbean, Latin America and the Caribbean Region.
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